Farm Industry Trends
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Evaluating the New Century Go-Go Farmer
Bob Craven, head of the Center of Farm Financial Management (FINPACK) for the University of Minnesota gave a discussion on evaluating the new century Go-Go farmer. The Median income for 2012 for Minnesota farmers was a slightly less than $200 thousand, while the top 20% were almost $700 thousand of net income. Top 20% characteristics: […]
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The Perils of Benchmarking
The next two sessions at FFSC dealt with the perils of benchmarking. As farmers try to benchmark themselves against other comparable farm operations, it becomes readily apparent that many perils or issues can arise. In many cases farmers (since they are human) really like using benchmarking when they are above average. In they are below […]
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Farm Financial Standards Council – Part 1
The annual conference for the FFSC got started this morning with a presentation by Dr. Tom Gillaspy a retired Minnesota State Demographer. He led off the presentation by stating that demographers are even more boring than accountants. I was almost insulted by this comment until I decided to consider it a compliment since he was fairly exciting. […]
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How Steep Is It!
This post is a continuation of my post from yesterday. The farm that I grew up on had hills with a fairly aggressive slope to them. The old 1960 era Hillside combines could level the combine on up to a 44 degree slope. There were two primary reasons to level the combine. First, it prevented […]
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Proof That I was a Farm Boy
My sister is in the process of converting a bunch of my dad’s old slides and I thought I would post some of the photos of me as a farm boy and growing up on the farm. Due to size, I will probably post these over the next few days. You can click on the […]
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Will Crop Insurance Proceeds Be Deferrable This Year?
We have had a couple of posts on prevent plant crop insurance proceeds being deferrable into 2014, however, what happens if there are crop insurance proceeds at harvest time. Most likely, all or almost all of these proceeds will be related to a drop in price. For example, the Corn Spring price was $5.65. If […]
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How Long is Your Pickup Bed
We had a reader ask the following questions about purchasing a new pick-up in 2013: “The new 2014 Silverado pickup has a model with a 5′ 8″ (inside dimension) box. Can you take section 179 on the full amount of this pickup for the 2013 tax year?” The Tax Code has a provision that does […]
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Capital Gains Questions on Selling Farmland
We had a reader ask the following series of questions. We are going to break them down into a question and answer format. Q – Regarding capital gain rates and selling farmland – Am I correct to use the difference between a stepped up ( appraisal / time of death ) value of inherited farmland and […]
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Watch Out For Disregarded Entities When Someone Dies
Limited liability companies (LLC’s) are often a preferred entity choice for small businesses, farm operations, and rentals because they offer some liability protection for owners. Generally, LLC’s are treated as partnerships for tax purposes, and a Form 1065 partnership income tax return is required to be filed. In community property states, when a husband and […]
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Top Farmer – Day 2 Session 3
The next session was presented by Jason Henderson who just started with Purdue after being with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He presented a series of maps showing farmland values from 1900 to the 1980s using constant current dollars. In 1900, there were no counties that had average farmland values exceeding $3,000. Some […]